East just isn't worth driving to: report

Western Sydney residents are heavily reliant on cars for local travel but are more likely to use public transport when heading to the eastern parts of the city, a report shows.

Drawing on data collected about travel within Sydney as well as the last census, the report, produced by a consultancy group for the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, focuses on the city's west.

Weekday travel within western Sydney from centres such as Penrith, Bankstown and Liverpool is almost exclusively by car - up to 95 per cent of trips - but much greater public transport use is recorded when residents are leaving the area.

"There is still much employment which is widely dispersed throughout [western Sydney] and which is only accessible by private car," the report says.

The trend is particularly noticeable in areas that benefit from a train line. In Campbelltown, 92per cent of weekday trips within western Sydney are by car, compared with only 63 per cent of those to eastern parts.");document.write("

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The report cites research showing the region's transport issues "include a high level of car dependency, an inadequate public transport system and very poor integration of transport and land use planning, which results in high levels of road congestion and contributes to air pollution problems".

More than two-thirds of work trips by western Sydney residents are within the region, compared with only 29per cent to other parts of town.

The trend is particularly strong in outer areas such as the Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains, Penrith and Camden, where less than 20 per cent of workers leave western Sydney for work.

On both weekdays and weekends, all council areas apart from Baulkham Hills, Auburn, Parramatta and Bankstown, "have less than 10 per cent of their trips going to destinations outside western Sydney".